Saturday, January 12, 2013

Banana Cream Pie

It's been quite a while since I've been asked to make dessert for a meal but that's what I was given to make for today's Shabbat lunch. Usually, my dessert brainstorming takes a ridiculous amount of my time but this time it was quick and painless! Banana cream pie! I had a couple of bananas laying around on my counter and I had serendipitously picked up a couple of pie crusts earlier Thursday after my frolic in the snow (yes, we got snow!) so I was all set for pie. Loyal readers of this blog will know I have a weakness for pie making and that I jump at the chance to make a cream pie (something about witnessing pastry cream thicken just does it for me!) so it was time for this classic to have its due. Finding a recipe proved to be a bigger challenge. Every book I own has a recipe for this pie but none were usable until I opened up the KAF Baker's Companion and settled on their version. It pretty  much doesn't get simpler than this and using store bought crust makes this even faster work. I made the filling the night before so it would have time to set properly and then topped with whipped cream at my leisure Friday morning. I chose to layer the bottom with banana instead of folding them into the pastry cream as some other recipes advise. It's up to you, either way you'll have a winning pie on your hands, just as this was.